dv9700 won't power on -- 3 blinks from battery LED

[critchard]

I had the same thing happen but after I tried a power cord from my son's dv9700, I was able to power up and run. You may want to try a different converter and cord.  It sounds like this may be a common problem with HP computers.

[FeRD_NYC]

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@aquah2o wrote:

hi srry for bumping this but i have the same problem on my hp g71 so no quick play button.

and i am also not in the USA and i have no way of sending it to FMS ,

could any1 pls try giving a solution? i am pretty handy in re soldering and reflowing so if that is needed no problem.

thx

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I wish I could tell you more than we've already covered in the thread here, but unfortunately I don't think there is just one, single solution to problems of this kind. The symptoms are all similar, but the causes can be very different. As you can see in the number of posts from people who've started out having what appeared to be the exact same issue as everyone else, but then report that they found a solution that solved the problem for them (but usually doesn't solve the problems for everyone else).

Something's gone bad on the motherboard that's preventing it from operating, so the admittedly not-very-helpful "solution" is obviously, "fix that something!" But there are dozens of possibilities for what exactly might be wrong with your particular machine. The first thing you'd need would be the proper equipment and know-how to determine what the exact problem is. Something I doubt anyone can provide in a forum posting, unless they decided to type out a semester's worth of digital electronics and circuit-repair classes for us. (And even then, you'd still need the testing equipment to go with the information.)

I still don't know exactly what was wrong with either of the two dv9700's I sent in, to be honest. I didn't ask what FMS did, since I didn't really need to know and probably wouldn't have understood it anyway. There's not a lot of "chatter", when sending a board down to to them... I think, the first one, they turned it back around to me without even a single conversation -- everything was handled via very simple, terse email messages from both sides.

But I do know that the two had totally different problems. As I said, with the first one the problem was in the AC circuitry, since it would run from a charged battery. The second one, that was the first thing I tried, and putting a charged battery into it had absolutely no effect. So, even my two seemingly-identical cases could have been worlds apart, in terms of the solution required.

You didn't say where you're located other than "not in the USA", but... wherever you are, there's probably a repair service either local to you, or in a location that you can ship it back and forth to without a lot of hassle. I'd just do an eBay search, that's how I initially found FMS! (A quick search for "dv9700 repair" on eBay just now turned up... well, I don't know how many hits for repair services, exactly. I stopped counting after the first dozen.)

Good luck getting your G71's issue fixed, and I hope you'll share anything more you find out about it!

(Oh, but don't apologize for bumping the thread -- personally, I figure it's always better to keep related discussions together! It drives me crazy when someone starts a brand-new thread on a support forum for a problem that's been discussed a dozen times in the past! The answers they get always end up being links back to the previous discussions, anyway!)

[pukegrusome]

it an overheating issue to fix it you need to remove the epoxy round the graphics chip and the north bridge chip then you need to protect the board using tin foil. then you need to reflow the 2 chips and bam it works. copper shim the  **bleep**er artic silver the **bleep** .

[breymaiera]

i had the same prob i found a easy way to get it started!!!  flip it upside down take the battery out for 10 sec put it back in kep it held up side down and hold the power in for 5 sec and more tahn likely it will turn on !! (:

[mumonline]

Hello I see the problem I have is relatively common on HP's 😞

My HP g62 laptop seems to have the same sort of problem (or symptom) won't turn on, no matter how long I hold the power button or do what is suggested. (upside down, battery in, battery out, new lead, whatever)

It does the '3 blinks' when the battery is in, nothing when it's out.  (the white led light is next to the power socket on the side)

My husband said he found something about a 'blink code' but couldn't find out what 3 blinks mean.  Is there one? Or is that rubbish?

Have tried another power source that is definitately working (light comes on, works with another computer) but no joy.  Can't tell with the supplied HP power lead as no light on it.

Annoyingly it's a few weeks over the 12 months (I think, will need to double check), so can't get it repaired under warranty.

So is there anything else I can try before trying to find a repair shop?  If it is going to cost more than £100 to repair I think I'd rather buy a new one. 

 I take it that if the computer won't work with the power on but no battery in, then it's not the battery?  I mean, is it worth getting a new battery or just straight to a shop (or in the bin???).

Am pretty fed up to find this is such a common problem with HP am also finding that our new printer (HP) which I got as our old Hp one was very good, consumes ink in ridiculous amounts, far more than the one it replaced.  Have their products got worse recently or was I just lucky before?

Has anyone found a way of getting it to work, even if just temporarily, so we can check that nothing important is on there?  (I think we're ok with what we have backed up I need to check, but we haven't backed up recently so would be good if we could).

[FeRD_NYC]

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@mumonline wrote:

Hello I see the problem I have is relatively common on HP's 😞

My HP g62 laptop seems to have the same sort of problem (or symptom) won't turn on, no matter how long I hold the power button or do what is suggested. (upside down, battery in, battery out, new lead, whatever)

It does the '3 blinks' when the battery is in, nothing when it's out.  (the white led light is next to the power socket on the side)

My husband said he found something about a 'blink code' but couldn't find out what 3 blinks mean.  Is there one? Or is that rubbish?

 

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"Blink codes" in general are fairly common in computers, and in all electronics in fact, as a way to communicate problem information. Some of them can be quite complex, almost morse-code-like. (Sony televisions will blink the power LED in situations where the screen itself isn't working — meaning no on-screen messages — and the number of times the LED blinks in quick succession signals a different error with each count. For many there are different meanings for up to as many as 6, 7, or more blinks.)

However, with HP's laptops I've never heard of any complex code language to the blinks, and as far as I know when the battery LED blinks it only ever blinks three times. It appears to indicate simply that the computer can draw power from the battery (at least enough to know that it has a battery), but is still unable to power on successfully. The reasons for that can definitely vary, but can be further refined when taken with other information, like...

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@mumonline wrote:

 I take it that if the computer won't work with the power on but no battery in, then it's not the battery?  I mean, is it worth getting a new battery or just straight to a shop (or in the bin???).

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100% correct. A properly-working laptop can run from the AC adapter with no battery inserted at all, so your problem is definitely not just a bad battery. Could the battery be bad / going bad? Sure. But even if you're worried about that, this is the worst time to spend any money on a replacement. A new battery isn't going to solve anything all by itself, so until you get the rest of the laptop's problems fixed what's the use in having a just-as-useless new battery also lying around? (And if you end up replacing/junking the laptop instead of fixing it, then that new battery's a total waste!)

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@mumonline wrote:

Has anyone found a way of getting it to work, even if just temporarily, so we can check that nothing important is on there?  (I think we're ok with what we have backed up I need to check, but we haven't backed up recently so would be good if we could).

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If the laptop could temporarily be powered up, then it wouldn't be dead, and we could just use that "temporary" trick every time. 😉

Kidding aside, if what you care about is "one last look" at what was on the laptop or whatever, then getting it up and running itself isn't the right path to take — whatever you did to make that happen would basically amount to having fixed the problem. Short of that, forget about making the laptop function and focus on getting at the information you have stored on it. That's all still there, perfectly intact and not in any particular danger, on you G62t's hard drive.

The quickest/surest/most-reliable way to examine the files you have on your non-working G62t is to take the hard drive out of that laptop, and use another (working) computer to access it and get to your data.

There's a moderate degree of risk involved in doing so, but it's a simple procedure and the risk can be minimized without much difficulty. Meaning, if not done carefully and properly by someone who knows what they're doing (or is willing to learn everything they need to know before they start the process), it's fairly easy to make a mistake and permanently destroy all of your data. But for someone familiar with this sort of thing and who has the necessary equipment and patience, it's a simple matter to safely retrieve it.

Extracting the drive from the laptop is a matter of removing a few screws and a panel from the bottom. Keeping the hard drive from being damaged once it's removed is somewhat harder and of critical importance. Drop it just once onto a hard surface, give it too hard of a smack while trying to fit it somewhere, spill anything on it, etc, etc, etc... *POOF!*, all your files vanish in an instant. The best approach is to transfer it directly to whatever you'll use to read it. Typically, that means an external SATA enclosure or dock that you can then attach to some other (working) computer's USB port. The drive from your laptop will show up like any other external drive, and you can retrieve any files you don't already have backed up.

As I said, for someone who knows what they're doing (and the fairly basic/inexpensive equipment they would need to bring/purchase) it's no more challenging than installing RAM or upgrading a laptop to a larger hard drive. Most people have a "techie friend" they can beg/bribe/blackmail into spending an evening helping them out with something like this, or knows of any average 15-year-old relative they can guilt into doing it for them. 😉

Doing that sort of file retrieval doesn't solve the original broken-laptop problem in any way, but it does remove the "Oh no, our data's on there!" component when trying to decide whether to fix it or junk it — which can help make that decision easier.

[mumonline]

Thank you  that's really helpful.

lol!  yes I did realise as I was typing it, about the contradiction of getting it on to retrieve data would mean we'd fixed it, but it was just trying to find out if there was a way of retrieving things.    

Unfortunately our teenager is only interested in watching Anime and asking me to fix things *rolls eyes*.  However we do know a techie via a friend, though will mean a very long trip to get the computer to him.  

I am currently going through what we've already saved and our old 'on it's last legs' Dell (with broken hinge and intermittent shut downs) to see what I can save off it, as s*ds law means it's going to break down too (we kept most stuff on the Dell, but were beginning to use the much newer 'more reliable' Hp!). We have been wracking our brains and think there isn't much we've lost (thankfully, except my spreadsheets, but I can live with that), especially as it's really ended up as the kid's computer whilst we've been left on the old Dell.  

I can see us making a decision over the next few weeks, am thinking of a more robust desktop with another laptop once the Dell gives up the ghost, but we'll see.   

Thanks again, now at least we know what to do if we do decide to get stuff off the HP, or if this Dell dies before I finish stripping stuff off it.

Of course we may still try and get the Hp fixed,.... if we do I'll post again as it may be helpful for others to know what went wrong.

Oh and the 'blink' thing was interesting, so now we know 

[salbandis]

I also got the same issue discribed below ...

With the Battery, whether or not the AC power is connected

Pressing the power button causes the Battery LED to blink 3 times, and then nothing

I have found that this is due to fully discharged batery after connecting the AC power this should be solved

But if your Laptop have another issue related to Battery charging and  Starting with only AC power

You will get issue discribed below ...

Without the Battery and the AC power is connected

Pressing the power button causes no any response, only the ring around the power connector lights up

To solve this you need to repair the power circuit issue related to the motherboard

meanwhile you can chrage your battery by using another Laptop to power up the machine.

[KBirman2012]

My boyfriend's HP HDX18 laptop wouldn't power up all of a sudden just tonight.  We tried everything, nothing worked, we tried taking the battery out and unplugging the power cord whil holding the power button for 30 seconds...still no start.  From what we read we thought for sure it was the motherboard.  Then as a last resort I searched the "3 blinks from battery LED" and saw the following post from doug1234:

"I have the same problem, but accidently found how to get my laptop to work.  Press the Quicktime or DVD player button just to the right of the power button.  Apparently, according to my son who works for HP the wire to the power button needs to be reset or re-attached.  That's all I know for now, but my laptop does turn on.  I even bought a new battery, but didn't need it."

...so we tried it...and it actually worked!  The only difference was that I pressed the mute sound button just after the DVD player controls...anyway if you have this problem, there is hope!

[KBirman2012]

Thank you very much for this posting as this was the only way we could get our HP HDX18 powered up.